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To W. D. Fox 15 November [1870]1

Down. | Beckenham | Kent. S.E.

Nov. 15

My dear Fox

I suppose that you are now settled for the winter (which has come with a vengeance today) in the Isle of Wight.— My wife wrote about Governesses when I got your letter of Oct. 28th & asked you whether you could come down here, but I suppose that was impossible.—2 You are a good-for-nothing man, not to have said something about your health & strength. I am a good deal used up with the excessive labour to me of correcting proofs of my present book in 2 Vols; & now it will not be finished till end of year.3 I owe many facts to you in the larger part viz on sexual differences of Birds.4 I shall be delighted to send you a copy, whenever it is published, though I have sometimes had misgivings that I ought not to do so, as I fear you will disapprove of my main conclusion on the origin of man; but I can most truly say that I have written nothing without deliberate consideration & acquiring all the knowledge which I possibly could.— I will send it, as I know well that you are a charitable man & do not without good evidence believe in bad motives in others.—5 It is very delightful to me to hear that you, my very old friend, like my other books, & you were one of my earliest masters in Nat. History.6

I wish I had got a little more strength. I feel that each job as finished must be my last.—